When a medical professional examines someone in the emergency room, he or she looks for signs of physical distress. How is the patient breathing? What about their skin color? Are their eyes dilated? Where are the visible signs of trauma? All of this (and more) is necessary to know before treating the person. After all, applying the wrong treatment can be more harmful than ignoring the physical distress.

Companies experience distress.

You do not have to look far to see signs of that distress. Talk with people that have survived a series of layoffs and reorganizations. Ask them about the constant worry of losing their jobs while coping with a series of changed assignments. Question them about the difficulty of trying to do ordinary business when management has severely reduced their flexibility to spend money or take risks. Watch how people talk about the future and their hopes. When you do these things, you begin to see severe distress.

Strategy and competitive intelligence organizations are suffering.

Within companies today, the current priority for many is simple survival. There is no shame, of course, with this objective. It does force hard decisions. One decision is to focus maniacally on preserving cash. That means two things – reduce expenses to the barebones and pursue short-term sales. Consequently, other things suffer. For example, many curtail or deemphasize strategy and competitive intelligence. This produces a specific kind of distress.

Here are five signs of business strategy or competitive intelligence distress.

1. It is unfashionable to be identified with strategy. Employees understand what is valued. Often they use self-descriptions that align with what is in vogue. In stressful times, those with an obvious “strategy” moniker will decrease. Alternatively, they will say “strategy” and then quickly explain how this means their plan for the next 30 days.
2. “Strategy” is equated only to cost savings. Even in tough times there is business spending. In stressful times, there is a disproportionate concern for reducing costs. Thus, projects or initiatives that deliver such savings are “strategic.” Revenue increasing projects tend to receive less support.
3. Competitive intelligence is stopped. Distressed companies turn inward to preserve jobs by increasing efficiency. Externally focused analysis seems like a luxury especially when it means having someone dedicated to the task. Companies fall back on distributing competitive intelligence responsibilities or simply ignoring the discipline. Given the crush of additional work, most busy people simply let it drop.
4. Common arguments do not work. In normal times, a strategist views the competitive environment looking for ways to win. That means doing a better job of developing and delivering products that customers want than competitors do. Investments are justified based on perceived advantages, competitor positions and customer needs. In stressful times, this currency is devalued. Arguments that work are internal, tactical and designed to minimize risk (versus maximize return).
5. There is an unsatisfied, pent up energy for the future. Stressful times, by definition, eventually end. Even now, in the companies that I talk with, strategists are beginning to emerge from this recessionary hibernation.  There is a desire for action, competitive initiative and a reawakened curiosity about what is possible. The stress shows up because it is not immediately clear how to get moving again in their company culture traumatized by the past year’s climate.

These five observations are not prescriptive. However, they do help point toward concrete steps for a business strategist or competitive intelligence professional to switch their personal and professional focus from distress back to success. My next post will cover some thoughts about what to do.

Have you seen distress signals for strategy and competitive intelligence people lately?